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Drive up to McDonald’s and unlock Burger King’s one-cent whopper via the Burger King app. (Image from adweek.com)

Tom Carroll’s Strategy of the Week

December 7, 2018

Burger King had a problem - sales were down and people weren't downloading its app. So it came up with a new promotion. The ONE CENT WHOPPER. But how you get it is the creative part. If you are within 600 feet of a McDonald's, you can download the BK app and qualify for a one cent Whopper at Burger King. You qualify and then get directions to the nearest Burger King. In this way Burger King gets McDonald's clients to come over to BK and download the app too for future promotions. About 50,000 people have taken advantage of the promo so far, twenty times more than any other promotion it's done. And the Burger King app has moved to #1 on Apple's App Store. It's been a huge success. The deal is valid near 14,000 McDonald's locations, but no word on how Mickey D's feels about it.

Nebraska had a problem. It was ranked 50 on the list of states people wanted to visit. Why? Flat, boring, lots of corn, no beaches, not a lot to do. So Nebraska decided to be disruptive. It came up with a new slogan, "NEBRASKA -- HONESTLY, IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE." The ad campaign makes people laugh and take another look at the state to visit. It actually corrects stereotypes by showing that there actually is something to do there. Anyway, the whole country is now talking about the state's honest slogan, and to go there to experience people, farmers, and a Midwest way of life. The Nebraska campaign went viral overnight, Colbert talked about it, newsrooms were humming. And funny thing, tests show that people are more likely to go to Nebraska.

Two Asian teenagers saw a blank wall at a McDonald's and realized that Mickey D's didn't have any Asians in their in-store marketing photos. So the kids made their own marketing poster and dressed up as McDonald's employees to hang the poster showing them in a McDonald's ad. The poster went unnoticed by the restaurant chain for several weeks. It looked just like their other posters. And when it was discovered, McDonald's was smart enough to go with it, and not get the kids in trouble. Then, Ellen DeGeneres heard about the prank and invited them on to her show where McDonald's paid both kids $25,000 for their marketing project and the story went viral. Now you can watch the whole story from the teenagers.

We always tell our clients the best PR is to run a good company, an ethical operation, and then your story is a lot easier to tell. Well, Wells Fargo didn’t take our advice and opened millions (yes, millions) of fake accounts for unsuspecting customers. The company has paid the price in a PR disaster. Now Wells Fargo has launched a new ad campaign called, “Re-established 2018.” And now there’s “Re-committing to You,” which has a huge billboard on I-25. Here’s what’s going on: Wells Fargo is re-branding itself, with Established 1852, re-established 2018. Or in other words, we’ve been around a long time, but we’re now an ethical company again. Are people buying it? Time will tell. Big American corporations do have staying power, but they don’t usually try to defraud most of their customers. That’s the Strategy of the Week.